U.s. Bill Would Aid Bids For Contracts By The Handicapped

July 15, 1986|The Morning Call

The director of the Kurtz Training Center in Bethlehem says a federal bill to allow non-profit groups like Kurtz to bid on federal contracts will improve employment opportunities for blind and handicapped people.

The bill to permit non-profit groups known as "sheltered workshops" to bid on federal small business contracts has been passed unanimously by the Committee on Small Business, chaired by U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker Jr., R-Conn.

"There are several groups in different parts of the country who have raised questions about non-profits bidding on these contracts, post office cleaning or making paper clips," explained John Lapidakis, president and chief executive officer of the Kurtz Training Center in Bethlehem.

"But the total of our business (sheltered workshops) would only be a small part of the hundreds of millions spent by the federal government for these contracts."

"Our argument is that it is cost-effective to provide employment for handicapped people and we have shown this in a number of ways.

"This development makes things look a little better now. We have agroup known as the National Association of Rehabilitative Facilities which has been working long and hard on this issue with a number of senators, especially Sen. Weicker," he said.

Unless given specific congressional approval, such non-profit groups are barred from competing for government contracts that are set aside for small businesses.

The bill approved by Weicker's committee would renew a program that expired in 1983 that allowed sheltered workshops to win small business government contracts.

In so doing it would help provide jobs for the 60 percent of American blind and handicapped people who don't have jobs.

The bill, sponsored by Weicker and a member of his committee, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., places an annual cap of $50 million on small business contracts to be awarded to sheltered workshops during the five years of the program.

Further, it contains a requirement that at least 75 percent of the man- hours of labor performed for a federal contract by a sheltered workshop be done by the handicapped.

In addition, the legislation places an annual $8-million cap on the contracts awarded under the program that can be transferred to the government's list of products and equipment it must purchase exclusively from sheltered workshops.

Weicker and Kerry said earlier the program is not a giveaway project since the workshops must submit the lowest bid and this means the government gets the contract at the lowest price offered.

Sheltered-workshops legislation first passed Congress in 1977 on a one- year trial basis and was re-authorized for two years in 1981.

During the three-year period the sheltered workshops successfully bid on $6.7 million in contracts out of a total of $38 billion award under the Small Business Act, Weicker reported.

He added that the proposed billmakes some substantive changes in the program to minimize any adverse effects the bill might have on other small businesses, while trying to re-instate the situation which existed prior to the program's expiration.

"It is to everyone's benefit to make taxpayers out of tax-users," Weicker said.